


Heat

by la_vita_bella



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Inspired by Frozen (2013), Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-08-28
Packaged: 2018-04-17 17:27:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4675181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/la_vita_bella/pseuds/la_vita_bella
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Elsa's terrible and awesome powers had centered around heat instead of cold?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Beginning

Arendelle was beautiful in the wintertime; icicles cascaded from every surface, and when the sun hit the valley just right… the whole thing was littered with a sparkling rainbow blindness that you could only understand if you looked out the window. In the nearby fjords, the icemasters toiled day in and day out, beginning to compile their stock for the coming warmer months. And inside the massive stone castle, Elsa and Anna were both getting ready for the coronation. However, there was an obvious difference in their attitudes towards the entire affair. Elsa, with her white blonde hair plastered back in the updo that her mother had worn during her reign as queen, looked severe, anxiety written in every single line of her face. Nerves before an event such as this were normal, but this… this bypassed normal fear and wandered firmly into the realm of a phobia. But what did she have to fear? 

Not even her sister Anna knew, and she was oblivious to her sister's anxieties as she bounced from room to room, practically shouting in that trilling little voice of hers about the things she was going to do and the dances she would finally be able to dance and the glittering gowns and the people! Oh she hadn't been around people in ages! Well, aside from the staff, but after a while dear old Hilda's same three stories got boring and Aarne's severe face and the way he shouted whenever she broke yet another plate were just… familiar. Painfully familiar. But tonight, tonight she would get the chance that she had always yearned for from behind those heavy oaken gates, gates that refused to open for her no matter how many times she tried to find a way around them. Tonight, she would get to show off the dance steps she had practiced so hard to learn, hopefully she wouldn't trip, and would get to practice her conversation, provided she didn't say something embarrassing or awkward or otherwise… well… her in the process. 

The clock struck ten, and as Elsa pushed open the doors to her room, after first checking that the gloves that were always securely on her hands were indeed pulled up all the way, she gave her command to "open up the gates," managing to look as unexcited about it as possible. Slowly, almost agonizingly slow since the chains had practically rusted into place after years of not being used, the gates creaked open, and Anna slipped out, smiling brightly as the winter sun shone on her face, the snow crunching under her boots that somehow felt different now that she was outside of the four walls of the castle. Oh but it was so beautiful outside! How had she spent so many years locked up when she could be out exploring the fjords, the woods, the streams… She didn't even recognize a single person beginning to meander inside the palace gates. Most of them were her subjects, er, sort of, so how did she not know them? Others were foreign diplomats and, well, that was pretty much Elsa's job so she was much less surprised that she didn't know them, though she had to admire the purple dress of a very pretty brunette woman that looked vaguely familiar, though she could have been imagining it. That had happened enough times for it to be quite a possibility. 

Humming, she skipped around the unfamiliar marketplace, not managing to worry about getting lost. She had studied maps of Arendelle until her eyes had practically rolled out of her head in protest, but nothing quite compared to being in it. The sounds, the smells, the sights, no map could adequately portray that, and as she walked and giggled and laughed, she allowed her mind to wander, nearly slipping on a particularly nasty patch of ice that probably would have ended with her showing up at the coronation with her arm bound tight to her, and that didn't allow for much dancing at all, and that would really be a travesty! However, with her mind wandering from one subject to the next as it so often did, she didn't see the horse, or the handsome stranger riding it, until it was too late, and she was thrown off balance and into a pile of fishing nets! For a moment, she flailed her arms around, though she stopped completely when she felt her flesh connect with the man's, nearly literally freezing in place. 

"Oh, I'm so sorry! Are you alright?! I didn't mean to really I just couldn't see and I was trying to get out of these nets, not that I have anything against nets it's just that these are kind of damp and cold and they smell weird and it's probably completely messing up my hair, even though I can redo that before the coronation and…" She paused for a moment, finally looking up as she took a breath in to continue, and looked up at him. As she took in his face, his finery, and his general disposition, she closed her mouth a little, a goofy grin spreading into place. He was handsome with a capital "H", and if there was a running game of "guess the prince" he would have been her number one pick. With a star by it. And maybe a few hearts. Was that weird? That was probably weird, best not to say that one out loud. 

"Are you alright?" The man stretched forward, attempting to move some of the nets out of the way, but with all her flailing, Anna had become hopelessly entangled, and she relaxed her muscles a little, letting her body sag against them. 

"Me? Yeah, great! Well, not really great because these nets really don't smell that great and, wait I said that already didn't I? But yeah I'm alright, just be thankful that it was just me and not my sister because yeesh. I mean she's great and everything but she's kinda terrifying, not that I would really know we haven't spoken in years but… Yeah, I'm alright, thanks, I just need to figure out a way…" She moved her left foot, and a coil of rope that had found its way around the man's foot tightened and moved, causing him to trip and fall right on top of her! Well this certainly wasn't the introduction to people that she had been expecting, but if this was what normal, everyday interaction was like, she would take it! 

"Oh, I'm so sorry miss, I didn't…" He looked flustered, which was cute in her opinion, but she held up a hand to stop him, which had somehow come loose after he had fallen on top of her. 

"No, no, it's fine, really, just help me get out of this thing… my sister's coronation is today and if I'm late she might actually kill me. Well, maybe not, I mean we are family and that used to mean something to her but now I don't know and I never see her and it's been really hard since our parents died at sea." There was a dazed look in the man's eyes as she spoke, not that it was exactly surprising, she had seen that look before. Well, every time she opened her mouth really, and as she closed it, she felt herself blush. Why was she so good at making a complete fool of herself? This was humiliating. 

"Coronation… You're the Princess? Your highness." He attempted to stand back and bow, but really that just ended with him flopping back down on top of her, and she tried hard not to laugh, but a chuckle still tore itself free from her throat, one that he, thankfully, joined. "I'm Hans, of the Southern Isles." 

 

"Well Hans," she shot him her radiant smile, "what do you say we get out of this mess, hmm?" And with that, they went to work, toiling at the net until finally they found themselves free. She reached out, wanting to thank him somehow for helping her get free even though it was really his horse that had knocked her into the net in the first place, but the clock began to chime out the time, and she froze. It was already time! But she had to fix her hair and the small rip in the dress before Elsa saw and she would be in front of all these people and oh no! "Sorry Hans, it was great to meet you but really I have to go, the coronation's in half an hour and I- Oh!" With all her wild gesturing, she had accidentally slapped him yet again! "I'm so sorry this has been so awkward, that included. Well, not that you're awkward, I'm awkward, you're gorgeous… wait what? Anyways I have to go and I hope to see you later. Oh by the way, my name's Anna. Okay but really bye now!" With that, she gathered her skirts around her and sprinted off, leaving a rather bewildered, and some might even say lovelorn, Hans behind her, reaching up to brush his fingers against the place where her skin had connected with his cheek.


	2. Elsa

Where _was_ she?! It was nearly time for the coronation and her darling sister had yet to be found. Oh, if she was hiding in the stables again making friends with the damn horses… Her palms itched, and Elsa took a deep breath. She had to remain calm, she had to breathe… The age old mantra repeated itself over and over in her head. 'Conceal it, don't feel it, don't let it show'. "Make one wrong move and everyone will know." "What was that your highness?" Hilda's voice called out to her from the shadows where she had been lurking, in wait of the same sister that Elsa had found herself waiting on time and time again. Jumping a little, she looked at the tottering old woman, the lines in her face that spoke multitudes about the years that she had spent working, not just for this family, but for others as well. She always told the same three stories, but she told them well, and on nights when she was particularly busy, as he had always called in Hilda to tell her one. Sometimes it was the only way she could sleep at night. 

"Oh, nothing, just wondering where Anna could have gotten herself off to." The exasperation in her voice wasn't fabricated, really how hard was it to show up for a damn coronation? But she hoped that it masked the anxiety in her voice, and thumping at the very back of her mind each and every spare moment. If Hilda caught on, she never said, but she offered a comforting smile. 

"Oh no need to worry about that, your grace. She's ready and waitin' in the church!" Her irritation flared again, and she found herself attempting to avoid clenching her hands together, the itching on her palms feeling more like a burn with every passing second. 

"Why wasn't I told?" There was real irritation in her voice now, and Hilda shrank back a touch. The queen to be had a temper, and while she had never taken it out on anybody, staff or commoners alike, there was still that fear there, stemming from the memories of an old woman who had been in one abusive household too many in her time. Immediately, Elsa softened, just enough to gently remind the old maiden in front of her that she would never harm her, or anybody else under her care. So long as she didn't actually touch them. "Sorry, Hilda… It's this damn coronation, I can't think straight." 

The matron's face softened. "It'll be over soon enough, your grace, and you'll be on the throne and doing whatever it is you please." The words struck a sour chord with Elsa, as she couldn't help but think 'but at what cost?' "Now come on, we've got a coronation to get to, haven't we!" 

Elsa stood at the front of the church, her ceremonial brown cloak spread out behind her, facing the priest as he spoke in a language she only half understood. Off to her side, there was Anna, looking as bubbly and rambunctious as ever. She could have sworn that she saw her sister lift her fingers and wave to someone in the audience in a way that was almost flirtaitous, but that was ridiculous. When had Anna met anybody to flirt with? And moreover, why would she do it in public? Refocusing, she watched the priest carefully, responding in perfect time to his words, as if she had practiced it a million and one times, because they had. 

But now was the time, no more practice, and as she slowly peeled off the gloves that had kept her secret safe for so long, she had to fight every impulse in her body to not run for the hills immediately if not sooner. When they were safely off and on the pillow, she picked up the ceremonial incators of her new position, and held them gently in her hands. For a moment, nothing happened aside from the dull, droning voice of the priest, and for that moment, she thought that maybe, just maybe, she could be safe. 

And then the itch started. 

Quickly the itch turned into a burning fire, and from there the heat radiating from her palms spread and the symbolic relics in her hands began to soften and bend, slowly losing their shape, and beginning to melt. She held on as long as she could manage, hoping that it wasn't so incredibly obvious to the people who didn't know what was wrong with her. If Anna's vacant expression as Elsa pulled on her gloves and clasped her still-warm hands in front of her was any indication, she was safe; but she found that it rarely was. Still, she tilted her head to her new subjects, secretly hoping deep, deep down that she would never have to see them again after this day was over. It was just too risky.


End file.
